The First Family: Has Mike Dash Written the Best Mafia Book Ever?

Giuseppe "Clutch Hand" Morello, the ruthless boss of America's first Mafia family

​The First Family:
Terror, Extortion, Revenge, Murder and the Birth of the American Mafia
By Mike Dash
Random House

Subject: Giuseppe "Clutch Hand" Morello and what's believed to be America's first truly organized Mafia family.

The Upside: Most Mafia books tend to be first-person tell-alls by the Mafiosi themselves, usually ghost-written by writers whose pact with the subject forces them to not challenge the narrator or dig too deep. And since these tales are being cast by congenital liars, it's hard to know what's fact, what's fiction, and why the career criminal sewing the story tends to be painted in such an honorable light, especially when you know he's really a scumbag...

Mike Dash: Rare is the first-rate historian who tackles true crime

​Mike Dash, on the other had, is a respected historian. And in this instance he doesn't rely on his subjects' retelling, but digs back through records from 100 years ago to chronicle the rise and fall of Giuseppe "Clutch Hand" Morello, the wicked boss of America's First Family.

Morello ruled Harlem and Little Italy for roughly a dozen years in turn-of-the-century New York. The immigrant from Corleone, Sicily -- the village made famous in the Godfather -- ran his family with an iron fist. Their specialties were extortion and counterfeiting.

Morello was a cunning leader, and a ruthless tactical genius -- at least in criminal terms. He had a gift for slaughtering his loose collection of rivals -- and his own men if they threatened his freedom. Since the NYPD had few Italian officers at the time -- and the city itself treated Italians as a sub-species -- he was pretty much free to do as he wished with little police interference.

Only one man, the Secret Service's New York chief, William Flynn, seemed to be paying any real attention to Morello. In many respects, The First Family is a cat-and-mouse tale between Flynn and Morello, as the fed hunts a serial killer who's arguably New York's most vicious criminal. It's also a wonderful look into early police investigation practices, which were rudimentary at best, and utterly incompetent and corrupt at worst.

What makes this book so good is Nash's research -- and his ability to extrapolate that into a personal, vivid tale. This isn't your father's history book. It's superbly written, psychologically insightful, a drama pulled from old newspapers and police records.

Ignazio Lupo -- aka Lupo the Wolf -- served as Morello's defacto underboss

​The downside: Dash relies heavily on the notes of Flynn to tell his story. After Morello is sent to prison, Flynn is transferred to Washington, D.C. Without the agent's surveillance work, Morello's story -- visual and meticulous in the first two-thirds of the book -- suddenly becomes swift and cursory through some of the most important years of the American Mafia.

The Clutch Hand's family is diminished during his years in prison. By the time he's released, he's no longer the king of Little Italy and Harlem. So he must align himself with Mafiosi of higher stature, but lesser cunning.

Due to a lack of research materials, Nash is forced to move his attention to the bigger, more written-about players of the day. Morello becomes something of an after-thought. It's hard to get a true feel of his role during the wars that created what the modern Mafia is today.

The Final Call: Despite the downhill conclusion, Dash has still written a superior book, especially given the difficulties of research during a time of few records.  

Grade: A+